[Editor's Note: From time to time we
come across articles, cases and links dealing with prisons and prison life in
general. Because much of what happens behind prison walls is hidden from the public
view, we feel that there should be a place on the Internet where the public can learn
about the prison system in America. Thus, we will periodically add items of general
interest to this section of our Web site with the hope that it can help to dispel some of
the myths about the Law and the Lore of prison life.]

Part A -Some General Observations about Prisons In America

Justice Brennan once described the plight of prisoners with these
compelling words:

"Prisoners are persons whom most of us would
rather not think about. Banished from everyday sight, they exist in a shadow world that
only dimly enters our awareness. They are members of a 'total institution' that controls
their daily existence in a way that few of us can imagine. '[P]rison is a complex of
physical arrangements and of measures, all wholly governmental, all wholly performed by
agents of government, which determine the total existence of certain human beings (except
perhaps in the realm of the spirit, and inevitably there as well) from sundown to sundown,
sleeping, walking, speaking, silent, working, playing, viewing, eating, voiding, reading,
alone, with others. . . .' It is thus easy to think of prisoners as members of a separate
netherworld, driven by its own demands, ordered by its own customs, ruled by those whose
claim to power rests on raw necessity." Justice William Brennan, dissenting in O'Lone
v. Estate of Shabazz, 482 U.S. 342, 354-55 (1987).

In the last decade, two brilliant decisions give chilling
evidence that barbaric conditions still exist in the "netherworld" of prisons in
America. The first of those decisions was Judge Henderson's lengthy expose of the
conditions that exist at Pelican Bay Prison in California, which he described in his
decision reported at Madrid v. Gomez, 889 F.Supp. 1146 (N.D.Cal. 1995).The second was Judge Justice's equally stirring expose of the prison system
in Texas, which was reported at Ruiz v. Johnson, 37
F.Supp.2d 855 (S.D.Tex. 1999).

In Madrid, Chief Judge
Thelton Henderson of the Northern District of California described, in lurid detail, the
conditions at the infamous Pelican Bay State Prison in California. Without reading
his entire 138 page decision, it is impossible to recapture the graphic descriptions of
what really goes on at Pelican Bay. However, to give an idea, Judge Henderson's
findings of fact about the use of excessive force at pelican Bay illuminating.

He catalogued five different types of excessive force
as follows: (1) Staff Assaults on Inmates; (2) Use of Fetal Restraints; (3) Cagings;
(4) Cell Extractions; and (5) Lethal Force. "Cagings" is the practice of
confining naked inmates in outdoor holding cells during inclement weather. The
"cages" - where prisoners are sent for additional punishment - are about the
size of telephone booths; they are constructed of weave mesh metal; and they have no
protection from the weather. But that's nothing compared with his findings on Lethal
Force. Judge Henderson concluded that "firearms have been used unnecessarily,
and in some cases, recklessly" at Pelican Bay. To support that conclusion he
cited the fact that of three killings (not shootings - killings!) that were brought to his
attention, two of the prisoners killed were not even the person at whom the shooting
officer was aiming! Of 20 other shootings he investigated, six of the inmates who
were hit were "uninvolved bystanders". [Guess all that target shooting
practice really isn't very effective.]

His description of "cell extractions" - or
the forcible removal of inmates from cells - is another beauty. Judge Henderson
noted that these undeniably "violent maneuvers" involve the use of several
weapons including 38 millimeter gas guns, "Tasers" (which incapacitates the
inmates with a 40,000 volt electrical shock), short metal batons and mace. Most cell
extractions were accompanied by severe staff beatings.

Judge Henderson explained that, in 1982, California
had a total of 12 prisons, housing 31,000 prisoners. By 1998, California had a total of 33
prisons, housing 160,000 prisoners, at an annual budget of $4 billion. (See,
"California Examines Brutal, Deadly Prisons", The New York
Times, Nov. 7, 1998, p. A-7). Pelican Bay was built to house the
State's most incorrigible prisoners; and although it only opened in 1989, Judge Henderson
found, in Madrid, that conditions at Pelican Bay caused "senseless suffering and
sometimes wretched misery."

Conditions like those found at Pelican Bay were so severe,
and so unnoticed by the general public, that Sally Mann Romano wrote an extraordinarily
revealing law review article, entitled , "If the SHU Fits: Cruel and Unusual
Punishment at California's Pelican Bay State Prison," in the Emory Law Journal,
Vol. 45, No. 3, Summer 1996, which can be accessed by clicking here. (The footnotes to that article can be
accessed by clicking here.)

If you are interested in reading about the conditions
that exist in America's prisons in the last decade of this enlightened 21st Century,
we suggest that you read Ms. Romano's expose.

The Ruiz case was
discussed in the 5/17/99 issue of Punch and Jurists. That decision, by Judge Justice of Texas, is a
masterpiece of compelling logic and disturbing facts; and is one that should be read by
everyone. The decision stands out as a beacon in the raging fight over the
controversial provisions of the Prison Litigation Reform Act which permit prison officials
to terminate long-standing consent decrees that granted Federal district courts
supervisory powers to correct constitutional violations in prisons.

In his decision, Judge Justice concluded, after
lengthy hearings, that although much had changed in the Texas prison system since he began
his supervision, "The evidence before this court revealed a prison underworld in
which rapes, beatings, and servitude are the currency of power" and he painted a
picture of "a frenzied and frantic state of human despair and
desperation." He particularly noted that "the extreme deprivations and
repressive conditions of confinement of Texas administrative segregation units . . .
violate the Constitution of the United States prohibition against cruel and unusual
punishment . . . [and] members of the plaintiff class still live under conditions allowing
a substantial risk of physical and sexual abuse from other inmates, as well as malicious
and sadistic use of force by correctional officers."

Judge Justice is no stranger to the battle for
justice in American prisons. In 1996, Congressman Bill Archer (R-Tx) made the
following statement on the floor of the House, just after the passage of one of the many
forerunners to the Prison Litigation Reform Act: ""I am very pleased to
see this legislation is on its way to soon becoming law. When I was in the Texas
Legislature, the Texas prison system was a model for all other prisons, with a excellent
rate of rehabilitation and costing just $1.50 a day per prisoner. Since then, judges like
Judge William Wayne Justice have been allowed to take over our prisons and order
frivolous, unnecessary facilities for prisoners costing taxpayers millions of dollars. We
must get the Federal Judiciary out of our state prison systems and return the power to the
states where it belongs." As the lawyer in the Ruiz case ruefully commented, it
as if Congressman Archer "didn't sit through the same trial and hear the same
evidence.

Jailhouse
Lawyers Manual (4th Edition) which is published by the Columbia Human Rights
Law Review, Box B-25, Columbia University School of Law, 435 West 116th St., New York, NY
10027. This book covers, among many other things, civil rights actions under
42 U.S.C. § 1983, tort suits, Bivens actions, grievance procedures, federal hocus pocus,
medical appeals, and direct appeals.

Federal
Criminal Defendant's Handbook - "Negotiating the Long
Lonely Road from Arrest to Prison to Freedom" by Douglas J. Hill,
a former attorney who experienced the prison system. This book is published
by Kensington Publishers and can be purchased over the Internet for approximately
$50.

Federal
Cure (Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants Federal
Prison Chapter) - a non-profit organization that deals solely with issues
faced by Federal inmates and their families. In addition to the Web site
it maintains at www.fedcure.org, it publishes a worthwhile newsletter
that keeps one abreast of what is happening in the Federal prison scene.